The Beach
by StoneLion
Summary: Haruka remembers a time less painful and questions the solidity of a destined life.


Disclaimer: I didn't do it. I wish I had, but Sailormoon definitely is something I didn't create.  
  
Sometimes I come to the beach when I'm feeling particularly nostalgic. I pull my car off the road and I pretend you're sitting in the passenger's seat. I imagine the wind playing with your hair and your slight smile as we watch the waves crash onto the shore below us.  
I used to wonder what you saw, what you felt when you looked out across the ocean. I longed to understand the depth of emotion you felt as you watched the waves, listened to the birds crying as they searched the undulating waters. Once I told you this and you smiled at me and laughed softly.  
I miss the sound of your laughter. Every time I hear the ocean waves I think about your laughter. Sometimes I can still hear it, mingling with the sounds of the seas. The wind seems to carry it around eternally.  
You told me once to listen to the wind when I asked you about the ocean. You said the wind had more answers for me than you ever would. Sometimes I scream to the wind now, asking it endless questions, all of them about you. The wind holds nothing for me any longer except pain. The wind cries with me on the darkest nights when our elements combine into something spectacular.  
We used to be something spectacular. Our comrades used to look up to us when we danced onto the scene and coolly disposed of the threat. The sea and the wind combined, creating the perfect symphony with the most beautiful harmony and melody ever realized.  
Now I look over the ocean and feel the same sadness the wind feels. I watch the waves reaching into the sky, snatching desperately at the wind yet never finding the comfort of solidity. The wind can never reach back to the ocean, never do more than keep on running.  
Sometimes I leave my car and meander down to the sand. I always find myself sitting on sand dunes watching the waves. Some nights when I'm all alone and the happy families have left for their warm homes, I can imagine you are the beach.  
The sand dunes become your breasts and the moon sparkles on their whiteness and accentuates their curves. The water shines like your hair, soft and warm, always flowing. I try to remember your touch on those nights. As I sit on the sand and listen to the wind, I almost can.  
You weren't supposed to die. That much fate promised me, restitution for the death of my dreams and the death of your own, I expect. The princess promised us forever. Everyday and night should have been ours, but apparently even stone can be shattered.  
I remember your last night. We followed our routine, lived the day like any other. Sometimes I wish we had lived our lives with some sort of spontaneity but then I remember our soldier's lives and understand why we liked having a routine. In the chaos of our lives, the same dull routine gave us something to remind us that not everything was duty.  
Your last night was on the beach. It seems appropriate that you died here. You died in my arms while the moonlight and the stars watched silently. Sometimes I wish you had died in battle. I wish you soaked the sand crimson before falling breathlessly next to some monster's corpse.  
I think it would have been easier if you had died in battle. If you had died in battle, then I could stay angry at you and not have to face my loneliness or the love I still feel for you. If you had died in battle, I could tell myself you made a stupid mistake and that your death was your own fault.  
I could pretend enough to almost make everything look all right on the outside. I imagine that if I fixed everything on the outside then the inside would just freeze up and I could preserve my anger for you and nothing more.  
I always feel selfish when I think of you in anger. You could have done nothing to prevent your death. You couldn't have known as we walked along the seashore. You couldn't have known which words would become your last and which steps would have become your last.  
I remember the way my heart leapt into my throat when you gasped lightly and fell midstep. The surf had crashed gently into your ankles and splashed against your hands as you dropped and I moved to catch you. The wind pulled at your hair and your dress as I had managed to keep you from hitting the earth and moved you away from the water.  
I had eased you back onto the sand and desperately pushed your hair out of your face. You looked serene, asleep. The moon had played across your face and accentuated the creaminess of your skin against the ocean of your hair. I remember crying out your name once, twice, trying to understand.  
Blood made a thick line out of your nose and I plunged my fingers desperately through your hair onto your neck, searching for any sign you could still hear me screaming your name in worry. I had looked around the beach for help as I moved my fingers around desperately seeking out a pulse.  
No one. It seemed unfair. We had always been forced to appear for the benefit of the rest of the world and now, in your time of need, in my time of need, everyone was cozy in their homes completely unaware.  
For a few maddeningly long moments, I had breathed for you and prayed for you and cried for you and screamed for you. Eventually, I had found myself sitting in the sand, holding your cooling body in disbelief. Thousands of questions rolled through my mind, but all I could do was sit in the sand listening to the sound of my own sobs and sea gulls crying as they flew over the undulating waters.  
That was the last night we ever spent together. I cried myself to sleep and woke with the sun and the gulls. The wind had caressed me lightly as I gathered your body, stiff and hard to move after the long night, and supported me while I carried you to the car. The sun had cast its pale morning light over you as if trying to wake you, and my tears had sparkled as they dripped down your face.  
I had gently put you in the front seat and buckled you in like a child. Even as I climbed into the driver's seat, I had still found myself unable to believe fate to be this final.  
I look out over the ocean quietly. Now I know better. Pluto found a new Sailorneptune within a few days of your death. She and I work wonderfully together, but she's not you. The wind can resist playing with her long tresses despite her beauty.  
So I come to the beach. The sand and the water, they're all that the wind and I have left of you.  
~End 


End file.
